


Stimming

by I May Age Regress (shnuffeluv)



Series: Gibbs' Family [56]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Ableism, Age Play, Dysfunctional Family, Fluffy Ending, Gen, Misunderstandings, Neurodiversity, Non-Sexual Age Play, Stimming, Team as Family, Worried Gibbs, Ziva is So Done With Everyone(TM)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 10:32:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10332671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shnuffeluv/pseuds/I%20May%20Age%20Regress
Summary: Gibbs notices for the first time that McGee behaves...differently than others when faced with strong emotions. He gets concerned. Ziva just wishes he could Get ItTM.





	

The day was a normal one as far as work days went in NCIS. The team was working on some lower-profile cases since their latest big one finished yesterday. Tony was chatting, Ziva was scoffing, McGee was typing, and Gibbs was wondering how he got himself into this situation, with the team working but always marginally dysfunctional.

Without warning, a loud bang reverberated through the office, followed immediately by an apology, as one of the janitors had knocked over their cart on accident. The atmosphere changed from amicable to awkward as everyone realized conversation had stopped, and in the near silence, a faint creaking started up from McGee's desk. Gibbs looked over sharply, finding his junior agent rocking forward and backward in his chair. Gibbs frowned. This wasn't typical behavior for his agent last he had checked. His mind traveled back to the time Timmy had gone missing, and turned up curled in a ball in his apartment listening to London Bridge for over an hour, and he felt a pang of worry. "McGee?"

The man looked up from his computer like nothing was wrong. "Yeah, boss?"

Gibbs was at a loss for words. "You feeling all right?"

"Yeah," McGee said like it was obvious. "I mean, I'm a little startled, because of the noise, but I'm fine. Why?"

"You're rocking, Probie," DiNozzo cut in before Gibbs could say anything.

McGee blinked, paused. Looked down at his lap, cheeks turning red. Then he looked up again, rocking slightly less prominent, but visible. "Oh, that's a bad habit from when I was a kid. Tried to kick it, couldn't. It happens sometimes when I'm stressed."

"That does not sounds like a bad habit," Ziva said. "It sounds like--"

"It's not important what it sounds like," McGee said, effectively cutting her off. "What's important is what it is. A bad habit."

Gibbs narrowed his eyes. McGee's words were robotic, rehearsed. Not his own. "Call it whatever you want, I don't care, so long as you get back to work," Gibbs said, a warning that the conversation should end there and then.

While he three agents turned to their investigations, Gibbs kept an eye on McGee. The man continued to rock as he worked, and Gibbs couldn't understand why he was doing so. It was as if McGee didn't realize he was doing it, too, because when Tony would look over at McGee annoyed, he was oblivious to any glares.

Gibbs sucked in a breath. Logically, he knew there was nothing going on with McGee. Or was there? There was no proof he was allistic in his medical file. There was no proof he was neurotypical, period. What if they had all missed something important?

McGee looked up at Gibbs nervously and offered him a smile. "Everything okay, boss? I'm not dying slowly and not realizing it, am I?"

Gibbs grunted and turned to his own computer. Worrying over the matter would get nothing done for _anybody_. He could worry about it later.

* * *

It seemed like later had come around. That night, everyone had gone back to Gibbs' house, including Ziva. Timmy was sitting on the couch, watching TV while Ziva and Tony played on the floor. Gibbs was watching them from the entrance to the kitchen. Timmy grinned wide when the show reached a part he particularly liked, before doing something Gibbs hadn't seen anyone he knew do in years. He waved his hands in front of his face and squirmed in a way that resembled rocking back and forth. The actions continued for a few seconds, before he leaned back into the couch, grin still on his face.

Gibbs couldn't help it; he stared at Timmy for a few seconds too long, and Timmy noticed. The color drained from the boy's face and the smile disappeared as soon as it was there. He rocked back onto his tailbone, seemed to realize what he was doing, and held himself perfectly still. "Gibbs!" Ziva snapped from her place on the floor. "Stop staring at him!"

"What?" Gibbs asked, turning to look at her, before glancing back at Timmy, who hadn't moved a muscle. "Is he okay?"

"He _was_. Then you started staring!" Ziva said, standing up and walking to Gibbs.

Gibbs stood his ground as Ziva approached. She balled her hands into fists and he squared his shoulders. "He's never behaved like this before. Never. And then something startles him today and suddenly he's rocking himself in his chair. Then something excites him and he starts flapping his hands! I don't know what he's doing, and it has me concerned."

Ziva pinched the bridge of her nose. "Oh for the--! How do I say this in English? He is _stimming_ , Gibbs!"

Gibbs blinked. "He's autistic?"

Ziva inhaled, pinching the bridge of her nose harder and squeezing her eyes shut. "I do not think so, he has not told me if he is. But stimming is not something that only autistic people do." Her voice was completely even as she said this, and Gibbs registered somewhere in his mind that she was trying really hard not to kill someone. "Stimming is short for self-stimulation. It is repetition of sound, movement, touch, or most sensations that can be experienced. It is not harmful unless someone is actively hurting themselves or others to stimulate. It is not something to be stared at. It is not something to bear prejudice against. It is just a _response_."

Gibbs frowned, and looked at Timmy from the corner of his line of sight. The boy had begun to rock slightly, presumably because Gibbs had stopped looking at him. "He's never done it before?"

"He must have felt comfortable enough to let his guard down," Ziva sighed. "Though after your response, I doubt he will still feel that way."

Gibbs focused on Ziva again. "What did I do wrong?"

"You were staring at him like he had grown a second head!" Ziva snapped. "Do you know how hard it can be to keep from stimming? Do you know how damaging it is when someone tells you it is unacceptable behavior? He felt _safe_  with you, Gibbs! And you took that trust he handed you and threw it back in his face!"

Gibbs frowned. "Do you stim too?"

"No," Ziva huffed. "A...good friend of mine. They forced him to stop. He was never quite the same after."

Gibbs looked at Timmy more obviously, and the boy stilled in his rocking when Gibbs looked over. He had screwed up. Badly. He wasn't entirely sure _how_  he could fix this, but he was determined to. "Timmy..." he started.

Timmy shook his head and shrank into the couch.

"Please, Timmy, just let me--"

"Nuh-uh," Timmy said, shaking his head furiously.

Gibbs tried to take a step toward the boy but Ziva blocked his path. Gibbs growled at her. "This is _my house_ , David."

"If you cannot respect Timmy's responses to any given situation, then I will happily remove him from this house for you," Ziva said smoothly.

Gibbs grit his teeth. "Care to repeat that?"

Timmy let out a low humming noise from the couch, and Ziva turned to him. "Timmy, love, why don't you go upstairs and get your blanket? That might help you."

The boy shook his head, rocking back and forth. "They'll stare," he mumbled. "An' 'll be in trouble."

"Timmy, I promise you're not in trouble," Gibbs said.

All the boy did was flinch and shrink away from Gibbs' voice. The man felt so powerless. Timmy was scared of him. All the work he had put into getting the boy to open up in the past year was gone. Ziva turned her back to Gibbs so she could face Timmy. "Timmy, do you need to leave?"

The only sound in the room was coming from the TV show and the couch springs from Timmy's rocking. He flexed his fingers. "I...I don't know," he mumbled into his lap.

Gibbs bit his tongue to prevent him from begging Timmy to stay. That would make the whole situation worse.

Timmy's finger clenching stopped, and his eyes became glassy. Gibbs recognized that Timmy was about to meltdown, and he took a step back towards the kitchen. Timmy instantly zeroed in on him, alarmed. Gibbs stopped and held up his hands. "Timmy, do you need something?"

Timmy pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them tightly, trying and failing to take deep breaths. He looked at Gibbs like the man could put his world back together and tear it apart simultaneously. Gibbs felt his insides twist. He could tell Timmy needed him, but was also terrified of that fact.

Tony sat up from where he was laying on the floor, watching the whole scene, and went over to Timmy. He sat next to the boy and wrapped a careful arm around him, squeezing gently. Timmy turned and buried his face into Tony's chest, and Tony looked briefly alarmed before DiNozzo adjusted. He looked up at Gibbs. "We've got this," he mouthed.

Gibbs nodded and silently went back to the kitchen to finish dinner. He checked the time. The whole exchange had taken less than ten minutes, but they felt like an eternity. The only times Timmy had...stimmed before had been in extremely stressful situations. Gibbs may have just gotten his first look into how the boy really felt, and he had ruined his chance at more by automatically assuming that something was wrong with the boy. If Ziva was right, he was just expressing how he really felt. Something Gibbs had been trying to get him to do since he had joined the team. In anger, Gibbs slammed his fist into the refrigerator door, and he heard an anxious hum come from the living room.

"Hey, Timmy, Papa isn't gonna hurt you," DiNozzo said over the humming.

The humming stopped and Gibbs could hear mumbling, but couldn't make out what Timmy was saying.

"Papa isn't your Daddy, kid. He's not gonna punish you for stimming. He just doesn't understand it. Truth be told, I don't either. I'm just as guilty as he is when it comes to staring."

More mumbling. DiNozzo thankfully repeated most of what Timmy said in his answer, no doubt for Gibbs' benefit. "Papa wasn't trying to tower over you when you stimmed, and he definitely didn't mean to give you a funny look. That's his, _I'm worried and trying to figure out what to do_  look. I've been on the receiving end of it plenty of times." Another mumbled sentence. "Aw, kid, he was just trying to make sure no one poked fun at you at work by dismissing it. He didn't try to stop you, did he?" There was no mumbling this time, but DiNozzo continued anyway. "Look, Timmy, Papa just wants to help you, you know? And he's never seen you do that before when something wasn't wrong. So I think he just assumed something was up when it wasn't. We've all done that, haven't we? Thought something was wrong when it wasn't?"

The timer on the oven rang and Gibbs pulled out the lasagna that had been cooking. He pulled out plates and cups and set the table himself, before poking his head into the living room and jerking it towards the dining table. "Dinner's ready."

Ziva was glaring at him coldly but nodded. "We will see if we can get Timmy to come to the table," she informed him. "But I would not blame him if he were to avoid it."

Gibbs moved back to the kitchen and brought the lasagna to the table and split it into fourths, one piece for each plate. After some thought, he took his own plate and moved from the dining room to the kitchen, out of sight. He stood at the counter and began to eat there. He listened to the movement in the rest of his house.

There was the sound of two voices murmuring, coaxing to Timmy. Eventually, three sets of footsteps approached the dining room. They must have seen he wasn't there, because Timmy started to hum again, and this time Gibbs realized there was a tune to it, something from the radio.

Timmy walked into the kitchen, and Gibbs did his best to keep his face neutral, but expectant. "Something you need, kid?"

Pointing at the wall, Timmy said, "You needta sit at your normal seat."

"Why's that?" Gibbs asked, picking up his plate and moving toward the dining room all the same.

"You needta," Timmy repeated, following him into the room and sitting down in _his_ normal seat.

Gibbs sat down, and put his plate on the table, looking Timmy over. "You look pale, kiddo. Are you sure you're okay?"

Timmy brought a hand close to his mouth and flexed his fingers again. He shook his head and started to eat.

The entire meal was filled with an unpleasant silence. DiNozzo refused to let himself relax, presumably in case Timmy needed someone to help him who wasn't Gibbs and wouldn't freak out if he clung to them. Ziva acted as though Gibbs didn't exist, for the most part. Gibbs was busy watching Timmy, who was flexing his fingers on his free hand. He found it surprisingly easy to read Timmy's emotions through his stimming. Flexing was for anxiety, as was humming if everything got particularly bad. Rocking was for any emotion Timmy had too much of, and hand flapping was for happiness. He wished he could _not_ stare, but he always felt the need to monitor his boys' feelings, and this was the easiest gauge he had found yet.

"Stop staring," Ziva ordered Gibbs, voice even but firm.

Timmy turned red and stopped flexing his fingers, causing them to twitch. Gibbs turned to Ziva, exasperated in his own right. "You want to know why I can't stop looking at it, Ziva? Because I can't believe what I'm seeing. Timmy has never been one to express how he was feeling outwardly, and this is the closest thing to a strong, gut reaction I've ever seen from him. I don't understand why he does it, not really. And it startled me when he did it at first, because I had never seen him do it and was worried I had missed something that might be hurting him. But if he's just expressing his feelings, or self-soothing, it allows _me_  to see how he's feeling, too. Which means I might be able to help him with them, if he'll allow me to. Yes, I'm not handling it in the best way I can, because I don't know _how_  to handle it. And I know that's making it worse! But I want to _help_  him, and the best way I can do that is to understand what he _means_  when he does this!"

"You are analyzing him like a suspect!" Ziva exclaimed.

"How else am I supposed to learn?!" Gibbs almost-shouted back.

"You could just ask!" Timmy actually-shouted.

Everyone turned to look at him. He was rocking ever-so-slightly, and both his hands were twitching. "You could," he repeated, quieter. "Daddy didn't like it, so I try not to. But I can't stop it. An' instead of starin' at me like he did, you could just ask."

Gibbs put down his silverware and ran a hand down his face. "You never shared things like that when I asked about it, Timmy. Not when it's this personal."

Timmy looked down at his plate, and flexed his fingers. "My fault?" he asked.

"Not your fault, me making assumptions," Gibbs corrected. "Thought you wouldn't share about this, too."

Timmy looked up hesitantly. "'M I in trouble?"

"Can you honestly stop doing this without hurting yourself?" Gibbs asked.

Timmy shook his head, still flexing.

"Then no, you're not in trouble."

The fingers stilled. Timmy frowned slightly as he took in this new information.

"And if you need to do it in the future, do it. I can't promise I won't stare, but I'll try not to."

Timmy smiled slightly, but Gibbs saw how happy he really was when Timmy's hands flapped in small but rapid motions. And Gibbs smiled slightly back.

Ziva huffed. "It's a start," she allowed.

DiNozzo looked between Timmy and Gibbs. "Does this mean I don't need to be a teddy bear anymore?" he asked hopefully.

Gibbs nodded. Tony sagged in relief and immediately returned to his eating, no longer caring about getting sauce everywhere or not, since no one would be cuddling him for comfort. Timmy looked at him and giggled, flapping his hands in the same, subtle way, and Gibbs was glad that while he may have screwed up, he wasn't incapable of fixing his mistake with time and patience.


End file.
